Description

Suffering from Fifty Shades withdrawal symptoms? Then meet Travis...Good Girl. Abby Abernathy doesn't drink or swear and she works hard. Abby believes she has created enough distance between her and the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college, her dreams of a new beginning are quickly challenged by the university's walking one-night stand. Bad Boy. Travis Maddox, handsome, built, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs - and wants - to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight club, and his days as the notorious college Lothario. A disaster waiting to happen...Intrigued by Abby's resistance to his charms, Travis tricks her into his life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain celibate for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis' apartment for the same amount of time. Or the start of something beautiful? Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match. Or that this is the start of an obsessive, intense relationship that will lead them both into unimaginable territory...show more

Review quote

"Beautiful Disaster is insanely addictive. Beautifully sexy, beautifully intense, and beautifully perfect. Jamie McGuire has written a damn good book." -- Jessica Park, author of New York Times bestseller Flat-Out Love "Characters, backstory, goals, motivations and conflicts are a great mix of angst, crippling inner demons and harsh real life. The pace has a rhythmic beat of two steps forward, four steps back as Abby and Travis grapple with their fierce attraction. Jamie McGuire writes with no holds barred. She writes with honest reflection on young people who move through life by their own rules...The entire cast lives hard, fights hard, and certainly loves hard. Deliciously intense." USA Todayshow more

About Jamie Mcguire

Jamie McGuire is the New York Times bestselling author of three other novels: Providence, Requiem and Eden. She and her husband Jeff live with their children just outside Enid, Oklahoma, with four dogs, four horses, and a cat named Rooster. Visit her website at JamieMcGuire.com and follow her on Twitter at @JamieMcGuire_show more

Review Text

" Beautiful Disaster is insanely addictive. Beautifully sexy, beautifully intense, and beautifully perfect. Jamie McGuire has written a damn good book." Jessica Park, author of New York Times bestseller Flat-Out Loveshow more

Customer reviews

What can I say about Beautiful Disaster (aside from it being a beautiful disaster)? First off, IÃ¢€™d like to point out how much EVERYONE in love with this new formed genre (New Adult), absolutely loved this book. And I should be ashamed that IÃ¢€™m one of them. But IÃ¢€™m not.
Beautiful Disaster began with the main character watching her leading man fighting fist to fist with another man within a ring. I must admit thatÃ¢€™s the first time IÃ¢€™ve read a book that opened with two guys beating each other to a pulp on purpose. So, kudos to McGuire for being unique (well to me). Then came the following cliche:
Girl: IÃ¢€™m a tough and smart girl and I donÃ¢€™t fall for players like you.
Boy: IÃ¢€™m so intrigued by your disinterest that I must win you over somehow.
Did I enjoy this cliche? Yes, I did. But then again, I loved about a quarter of the book before I began disliking it. The more I got to know the main characters, the more I hated the book. The story dragged on too long when nothing was really happening. But when something did happen. It gets too overwhelming and rushed that I just wanted to put down the book and not read anymore.
To sum it all up, if I ended the book in between. I would have given the book 5 stars. But then, I had to keep going and ended up disliking the characters so much. But because of how page-turning and beautifully written the book is. IÃ¢€™ll give it a fair 3 stars for being such a beautiful disaster.show more

by Najla Qamber

Many thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for my review copy, this is in exchange for an honest review.
Wowzer, that was a heavy book and no I donÃ¢€™t mean weight wise. Heavy as in packed the punch with the rollercoaster emotion it throws at you. I had a hard time reading this and it was totally absorbing, if youÃ¢€™re looking for a light read step away!! In fact just run away now.
I loved the feel of this book and the way it kept the reader on their toes, I wasnÃ¢€™t sure which way it was going. This did keep my interest at its peak. After the 60% mark I could not put this book down, I even stayed up late to finish it and yes it was worth feeling crap in the morning for.
I would recommend this and I will certainly be checking out Walking Disaster. Nearly scored top marks with me, the only reason it didnÃ¢€™t was that I think the emotion just ran too high and I did feel like throwing the book at the wall with frustration. But 4.5 stars is pretty damn amazing.
Very complex in places, but I never felt out of my depth. The story is explained well and I felt a connection with the characters all the way through. Nice writing style which flowed like a fast flowing river. I did have to grimace in places at Abi - as realistically I couldn't see some of the scenarios working out, I think someone would have to be incredibly stupid or naive to not suss things out. But hey if that's the only thing I can knock about the book, well that isn't too bad in my eyes.
Overview:
A fast addictive pace, leaving you a jumbled mess of emotions. Loved it!show more

by Jennifer Juckes

First, some preamble. I KNOW that Beautiful Disaster is an absolutely despicable representation of what it means to be a) in love and b) in a healthy relationship. I know that Beautiful Disaster showcases every violent and controlling behaviour found in an abusive relationship, and that it romanticizes that behaviour. I also know that the way women are treated in Beautiful Disaster, as mere things that exist solely to please men, is wrong on every possible level. I know that for those reasons, and many more that many other more eloquent reviewers have pointed out, that I should have hated Beautiful Disaster; that I should be appalled and disgusted by everything it represents.
Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a case of the Twilights, where regardless of every rational bone in my body, I found myself enjoying a lot of what I should have been repulsed by...
Abby was one of the most emotionally confused protagonists I've read about in a long time - and I loved her for it. She made absolutely no sense - it was obvious that she wanted more than friendship from Travis, but she continued to reject his advances at every turn. She went so far as to date someone else - someone who was the polar opposite of Travis - to prove that she could be attracted to the "right" kind of guy. But while her behaviour was frustrating - just admit your feelings for him already! - I understood that she equated a life with Travis with the life she was trying to leave behind; a life of drinking, violence and cons. I couldn't fault her for trying to make a better life for herself than she had grown up with.
I also loved Abby and Travis together, when things we're going well. Their playful banter, their steamy sex scenes, and the tension that rolled off of each of them in waves was thick enough to see at some points. I found myself laughing out loud during some of their more playful moments, fearful for their hearts during some of their more tender moments and slightly teary during some of their more vulnerable moments.
What I couldn't stand was Abby and Travis together, when things weren't going so well. Travi's controlling behaviour, demanding that Abby change clothes because he couldn't handle knowing other guys would be looking at her and thinking about sex. Abby's manipulation of Travis' feelings, breaking up with him only to act hurt and above reproach when he tried to move on. BUT, these beyond-annoying frustrating moments made for the kind of read where your eyes stay glued to the pages; I couldn't have put Beautiful Disaster down if I had wanted to, because I was just as caught up in Abby and Travis' relationship as they were.
Other than their on-again, off-again relationship, Beautiful Disaster really didn't have much going for it in way of plot - or character - development - literally the entire book is focused on whether or not Abby and Travis would end up together. I kept waiting for Travis' anger to push him too far, for his actions to catch up with him, and for it to cause him to see that he couldn't just punch his way through his problems. Or for Abby to realize that as much as Travis had changed for her, he had a lot of stuff going on that she would never be able to "fix." When I realized that neither character was actually going to learn from their experiences with the other, I couldn't help but be angry with myself for hoping for more.
Much like I enjoyed Twilight, even though I chastised Bella for being so naive to how unhealthy her obsession with Edward was, I enjoyed Beautiful Disaster even though I kept mentally reprimanding Abby for encouraging Travis' obsessive and controlling nature. I don't know that I'll bother with the sequel, because what I'm really interested in now is seeing life for Abby and Travis, six months later. You know, when she's knocked up, money's tight and Travis has started to come home smelling like whiskey...show more

by Pretty Little Reader

Whoever wrote the full description of this book would be better off looking for a job in a different field.show more

by Shery

Read this book in one night. I liked that, although it comes across as just another teen love story, it's a bit more mature than what we normally see. There IS sex, and there IS alcohol and you actually feel like this is stuff that is really going on (and the high point isn't just "the kiss").
I found Abby a bit frustrating at times and doubted that anyone (especially someone who could, apparently, literally have any girl he wanted) would come back again and again even after she pushes him away, in occasionally pretty nasty ways. I suppose that's where the romantic fiction comes in.
I appreciated the two main supporting characters in America and Shep because they often said what I would think to myself, especially with regard to things Abby did. ("So you do this but then you do that, you want it but then you don't...") In a story as dramatic and frustrating as this, you need a voice of reason that can agree with you about the stupidity of some of the things that are said and done and I felt those two provided that really well.
It's not a book for 13 year olds but it fills the (often overlooked) niche of 18-25+ year olds who like the simplistic boy meets girl but with a bit more sex, drugs and rock n roll, so to speak.show more

by Hennison

This is the first book I read this year and boy am I glad I started it off with this one. I've had this book on my Goodreads TBR list since November 15th 2011 even though I won an e-copy of it a few months ago it has taken me this long to get around to reading it. I'm one of those people that if a book is getting a lot of hype that I will wait for all the craziness to die down a bit because of all the excitement so in a way I'm glad I waited to read Beautiful Disaster but in a way I'm sad too because I enjoyed the book so much I kinda wish I hadn't waited so long. Anyways on to the review!
Beautiful Disaster is the first novel in Jamie McGuire's Beautiful series and is also her New Adult debut novel. The book tells the more often than not tumultuous relationship between goody two shoes Abby and bad boy Travis Maddox and chronicles their ups and downs as they fight for and against each other.
This was the first book I've read in the new genre called New Adult and I have to say it was pretty good. While I don't agree with the name for the genre I do agree with the fact that there is a genre for these types of books. I mean I love young adult novels and adult novels but I'm 22 and sometimes I would really like to read books about characters in and around my age more and this one certainly fit the bill.
To me Beautiful Disaster was the proverbial train wreck. Seriously, the relationship between Abby and Travis sucked me in and I just could not tear myself away from it. Just ask Mr. Turning the Pages, he felt more than a little ignored when I was reading this book.
The characters in the book were pretty well written, I liked the fact that they all had their faults and were by no means perfect in any way but they also irritated the hell out of me. Abby was far to submissive with Travis and I think she should have fought more for the independence that she apparently so desperately wanted in the beginning of the book. However, once she and Travis got all the fussing out of the way she turned into a bit of a doormat and I absolutely abhore characters that turn in to doormats. Plus the whole business with her dad just didn't really fit in the story so well and during that part of the book her character went from slightly annoying to very awkward. I just couldn't envision her as that person so it took away from the reasons why I enjoyed her character. Despite the fact that she could be a little bit of a ditz and doormat sometimes she surprised me with her actions when she would stand up to Travis if she wanted something.
Travis...what can I say about Travis? Am I the only one who wasn't enraptured with his character? Don't get me wrong I get why people are taken in by him. I understand the whole bad boy appeal thing I really do but Travis took the bad boy man **** thing to a whole new level and it irritated me. Plus I didn't like how he laughed at Abby so much and it was as though he didn't take her seriously enough. What also bugged me was how fast he changed for her. He went from being man **** to planning their future all within a couple weeks (or months) of dating.
I did like America Abby's best friend and Shep who was Travis's best friend, roommate and cousin. As a couple I really liked America and Shep. They seemed a lot more normal and despite the fact that America is a bit of a drama queen.
The one thing I will say about all the characters is that they all loved each other for better or for worse and they were all looking out for the best interests of each other which was refreshing. I'm so glad that the book didn't turn out to be a catty read where Abby and America turned against each other. I know it may seem like I didn't like the main characters in the book but I did. There were just some personality quirks of theirs that I didn't like so much. In fact I really liked them especially because the characters made me happy, sad, or so angry that I wanted to kill them. It takes a really good author to make me connect to characters the way I did with these ones. If I didn't like the characters then I wouldn't have bothered reading the book at all. I think if an author can make you feel something about a character that that is the sign of a good writer.
As for the plot, I thought it was a little recycled. The whole good girl bad boy romance thing is a theme that is in every other romance novel out there but I did enjoy the fact that this book was set in a college. Though there is something I find a little fantastical about the school that just didn't have an basis in reality. I've gone to college and while I didn't live on campus I know that there wasn't the camaraderie that the students in this book had for each other and it irritated me to no end because the situations were often very unrealistic and honestly when I was in college no one gave a damn about who did what with whom and why so I didn't see why so much importance was placed on Abby and Travis's relationship but it was fun to read.
I liked the way the author was able to bring some life to the typical college romance thing. This is probably one of the most drama filled books I've read in a while and I liked the way Jamie McGuire was able to keep me hooked on the story. Normally I'm not a fan of contemporary romances but this was a good one. She kept the story going and made me not want to put the book down. Abby and Travis's co-dependant relationship had me hooked and even though I didn't agree with a lot of things said and done between them I like them as a couple.
While this book definitely isn't a piece of high brow literature it was a good read and probably one of my favourite romances ever. It was awesome reading a love story centered on a couple closer to my age compared to the other romances I read where the characters are in their early thirties.
I would recommend this book to fans of the New Adult Genre, people who enjoy contemporary romance and those looking for a more mature YA novel. While the story isn't perfect it is addictive and I can't wait to read the second book in the series told from the POV of Travis.show more